Cellulose, which is an abundant natural raw material, is a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundreds to ten thousand linked D-glucose units. Cellulose fibers can be refined with a refiner or a grinder to produce cellulosic material. The production of cellulosic material, especially when the produced pulp includes fibril cellulose, requires a significant amount of beating energy. Therefore, there may be an efficiency problem with the cellulosic material production.
Due to the above mentioned problem, it is found to be beneficial to add some compounds to increase the efficiency of the refining stage of the cellulosic material production. Cellulose fibers can be reacted, for example, with monochloroacetic acid or a salt thereof in an aqueous alkaline solution to produce lightly carboxymethylated cellulose. However, there is still a need for a new solution for increasing the efficiency of the cellulosic material production.